


Something Fishy

by murderlight



Category: Bleach
Genre: Crack, Humour, M/M, Romance, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 22:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15958766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: Informed that Kurosaki has abruptly called off their weekly fight, Grimmjow confronts him with the intention of not taking no for an answer. What eventuates is a long, slow scene set almost entirely in a bathroom.Oh, and Ichigo is a mermaid.





	Something Fishy

Grimmjow considered himself a relatively tolerant sort of person. Not everyone agreed with that self-assessment, but some of those people were actually still breathing, which he felt proved his point pretty fuckin’ well. Still, there were some things he just wasn’t putting up with, and being turned away from Kurosaki’s doorstep by a ragdoll with a ladle was one of them. Even if she did have enough spiritual awareness to see most of him.

“What do you mean he’s fuckin’ indisposed? If he’s trying to squirm his way out of fight night I’m gonna kill him twice as hard—”

Yuzu—and just who the hell named their kid after a lemon, anyway—white-knuckled her ladle and stepped onto the threshold like she was going to throw down right there. It was fucking cute, which infuriated him because there was no way in hell he was going to be able to punch her in the face and step inside.

“He’s sick! You’re not going to get a fight today, Grimmjow-san. Just let him,” her eyes vagued out a little, “let him rest.”

Ignoring their usual argument about honorifics, Grimmjow’s eyes narrowed. That face was saying something was wrong. Sick? Rest? Sure, maybe, but that kid was incapable of telling a decent lie. And yet she’d just tried. Settling back a little, he pushed his hands into his pockets and tilted his head. Calm, friendly.

“That’s a real shame,” he told her. “Need him in top shape for our battles, you know.”

“He’ll be better soon.” Relaxing slightly, she lowered the ladle. The door opened a little wider. “He’s just feeling a little green around the gills.” Checking herself, Yuzu’s cheeks abruptly flamed crimson. Interesting reaction, Grimmjow thought. Ah, fuck it.

“I wanna see him. Give him my uh, best regards.”

“No. Go home.”

And she shut the door in his face.

Grimmjow blinked at the lacquered wood.

Oh, so it was like that, was it? Well, fuck that. Now he was curious  _and_  pissed off.

Making a loud show of kicking the door and announcing he’d remember that, Grimmjow darted around to the side of the house on silent feet and leapt up to the sloped first floor roof that lead up to Kurosaki’s bedroom window. He’d never used it to get in before; never needed to, but he did know the lock had been broken off years ago for easy access. For all Kurosaki complained about the shinigami all using his bedroom for storage and random meetings, he sure made it easy for them to get in. Sliding the glass across, Grimmjow swung a leg over the ledge and rolled through onto the bed.

A soft lump under his ass screamed.

“Ahhh! It’s coming out! My stuffing! It’s coming out my mouth!”

Reaching under himself, Grimmjow fished out the screeching form of Kurosaki’s little sidekick dog. He brought it close to his face and scowled, just a little. Kon made a face like he was pissing his pants a little, inside his mind.

“Why is it you?” Kon moaned. “Honestly, the gods are cruel.”

“What?”

“Sitting on my face!” Kon yelled, like Grimmjow knew what the hell he was talking about. “Be careful what you wish for, is all I’m saying. You here for Ichigo? He’s...in the bathroom. But don’t go in, it’s rank. He’s shit all the way up the walls. It looks like a kindergarten finger-painting class in there.”

The visual was immediate and disturbing. Grimmjow had certain bodily functions restored to him when he evolved to arrancar, but using the bathroom wasn’t really one of them on account of the no eating thing. Seeing Kurosaki shitting his insides out wasn’t really on his list of things to do.

Throwing Kon at the opposite wall, Grimmjow arched his back and worked himself up onto his feet, wondering if he should just go back to the shop and let Kurosaki writhe in peace. He honestly couldn’t think of a time in the last two years of weekly fights where Kurosaki had begged off, and that included the time he was recovering from an accidental punctured lung from the week before. For him to call it off without warning like that...

“He gonna be okay?” Grimmjow asked abruptly. Sprawled on the cabinet by the window, Kon was pushing himself upright and staring at him. “I could...” Could what? You dumb fuck, he told himself furiously as the dog started to snicker at him.

“It’s food poisoning; he’ll survive.” Executing a perfect jump and somersault, Kon landed back on the bed. “Just give him til next week before you fail yet again at kicking his ass.”

All Grimmjow heard was  _poison._  Swinging his attention to the hallway, he used his pesquisa to feel out the nearby reiatsu. Immediately he stiffened. Kurosaki might be ill, but that didn’t explain why his reiatsu signature felt like it had warped into something alien. Instead of the familiar warm glow of blue-white he was expecting, something that guttered and burned like a flare touched his senses. It felt feverishly unstable. Against his will, his stomach clenched.

“Tell anyone I’m here and I’ll rip your legs off and cero ‘em.” Grimmjow headed for the bedroom door. Kon immediately started shrieking.

“No! No! No!” With one desperate spring he was attached to Grimmjow’s head, trying to yank out enormous tufts of his hair. “Don’t go in there! He doesn’t want you to see him!”

“I don’t give a shit,” Grimmjow snarled back, ripping Kon off his head and stuffing him inside the pillowcase on the bed. Then he threw it inside the wardrobe and slammed the door. “You ever try to smokescreen me again and I’ll fucking shove your pill up Urahara’s hairy ass.” Muffled screaming followed that, which he ignored as he walked out into the hall, following the strange signature in his mind. When he came to a closed door humming with strange energy behind it, he tried the handle. Locked.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice asked, sounding drained. “I told you, I’m fine. No more fussing over me.”

“Who’s fussing?” Grimmjow replied, his brow creasing in confusion. “You missed our date, shitty shinigami.”

The sound of water splashing reached his ears. A lot of water. The bathtub?

“Oh my god, go home,” Kurosaki said, and Grimmjow was pretty sure his tone was what mortification sounded like. “I can’t come tonight. If you have any mercy in your heart, Grimmjow, just leave me here. Turn around and go home, and I’ll see you next—”

Dead heart thumping strangely, Grimmjow was already pushing his way through the physical barrier of the door, warping it into something he could step cleanly through. Baby hollow stuff, that was; skills he hadn’t touched in who knew how long. Kurosaki always brought out the unexpected.

Grimmjow blinked the moment his feet touched the glossy bathroom tiles, shaking off the static buzz of moving through a solid object. He stopped dead the instant his eyes focused.

“Holy shit. This is what they were tryin’ to hide from me?” Grimmjow didn’t know what the fuck he’d expected, but the reality sure as shit wasn’t it. “They said food poisoning, not—fuck, Kurosaki, what do you even call this bullshit?”

“Experimental drugs gone wrong, I guess.” Kurosaki huffed a humourless laugh that sounded like it was using up the last fumes of his energy. “Food poisoning isn’t too far off the truth, really.” Slapping his enormous orange-finned tail weakly against the rim of the bath, he tipped his head back against the tiles and closed his eyes. He was sickly-looking, his skin almost translucently pale, but that was nothing on the fact he was sitting in a bathtub full of water with a six foot fish tail hanging over the end of the tub. “I really wish you hadn’t seen this.”

Grimmjow couldn’t honestly say the same. Sure, he knew what Kurosaki looked like; he’d been looking at him at least weekly for the last few years now. Before that exact moment he would have described him in colours: orange hair, brown eyes, black uniform. Faint summer tan darkening his skin when it was hot, or a paler stretch of skin in winter, chilled with sweat from their battle. Usually shredded before long, scowling like Grimmjow owed him money. Or smiling, when he was really enjoying a fight, a flash of white teeth and a gleam of furious delight in his eyes. Calloused hands, scraped knuckles, bloody mouth. That was the Kurosaki he knew best.

This was...different. Crammed in a bathtub that was walled-in on three sides by the shower, naked all the way down to below his hips, where a ragged line of scales the colour of sunset started flowing down like interlocked armour. It shone, painting him metallic copper and gold all the way down to a long frill of delicate pale fins. It was fucking beautiful, and Grimmjow had a real hard time looking away from it. What the fuck? Swallowing at his own unfamiliar reaction, he looked up above the equator. Nothing new to see there, right?

Kurosaki’s hair was still offensively bright, but it had grown out long. Real long. It floated in burning shades beneath the water, snake-like tendrils surrounding his body in the small space of the tub. From the shoulders up it was a bright halo of messy spikes and haphazard strands that clung to his clammy cheeks. Against his pallor and the hair falling across his brow, Kurosaki’s eyes gleamed with a strange light that reminded Grimmjow of the amber whiskey-burn of long nights. He had a lot of questions. Most importantly: when the fuck had he gotten poetic about Kurosaki fucking Ichigo?

“You look like shit,” Grimmjow said flatly, and shoved the tail away so he could sit on the side of the tub. It was pure muscle though and snapped back to hit him in the ass, knocking him up almost to waist level with Kurosaki, whose eyes were slipping shut. There was a small measuring jug floating in the water beside him. Grabbing it, he figured he was basting himself to stay wet. From the look of his tail, it was too damn long to completely reach. “Why are you a fish?”

“Sea hollows are a thing, Ichigo, try this experimental drug, Ichigo,” was the self-deprecating reply, followed by a weak snort. “It’s supposed to last twenty-four hours. Had to leave my body behind in the clinic when it happened. Ejected right out of there until I can change back.” Shifting with a squeak of skin on enamel, Kurosaki gave him an unhappy frown. “You can go home any time, you know. Since I’m obviously not going anywhere in a hurry.”

“Can you breathe underwater?” Grimmjow asked instead, scanning his body under the rippling water. “Thought you needed gills for that.”

“They’re on my back.” Struggling to sit on what was no longer his ass but the flexible base of his tail, Kurosaki actually gasped his way forward and tried to pull his hair off his back to show him. “They’re up—just near my shoulders. Can you see?”

Grimmjow could see them all right; long, slanting lines on either side of his spine, just over his lungs. They looked like the scars left from something cut away. He shoved his finger into one, making Kurosaki hiss and punch him in the thigh.

“Fuck off,” he groaned, slumping back into the water. He looked like he was having trouble catching a breath. Sweat was almost dripping off his temples, darkening his hairline. “It’s not funny. Stupid gills don’t even work right now.”

“Never said anything about it being funny.”

“Then what? You that bored when I can’t fight that you want to fiddle with my fish parts?” There was a faint tick of a smile in the corner of Kurosaki’s tired mouth. “That’s pretty gross, Grimmjow.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the bathtub fish steeping in his own filth.” Filling the jug with a deft motion, Grimmjow dumped the contents over Kurosaki’s head. “Hope you didn’t piss in the water.”

It took half a second for Grimmjow to realise he probably shouldn’t have watered the sickly-looking mermaid as a punishment. With a murmuring sound of pleasure Kurosaki tilted his head back until rivulets of cold water ran through his hair and down his face, droplets flying off his eyelashes as they snapped open to look up at him in entreaty.

“Hey, could you—” But Grimmjow had already figured it out, filling the jug again and pouring it over his tail. It turned the colour of his scales from cloudy orange to molten metal as it ran down from the edge of his tail, down over its dried-out curve and back into the water. Slumping with relief, Kurosaki sighed. “Yeah, that’s the shit. I haven’t been able to reach the end of it. The tail is a mile long.”

“Could have asked your sisters,” Grimmjow replied, absolutely not questioning why he was already filling the jug up again. “Or your old man.”

“I’m twenty years old. I’d rather die than be bathed by my family members. Hey, get my head again.” Greedy fucker, he actually grabbed Grimmjow’s wrist and dragged it over to tip the water on his head. He kept making noises like he was having a religious experience.

“So you’d rather I bathe you instead,” Grimmjow said pointedly, shoving hair off Kurosaki’s back when he leaned forward. The next jugful went over the gills along his back in a long, free-flowing stream of water. Harribel had certain preferences for water distribution in Hueco Mundo and she was practically a shark, so—

Kurosaki gasped, and horrifyingly, his gills started to flutter like rows of thin mouths opening thirstily at the first touch of water. Grimmjow wondered if hollows could still vomit.

“That is fucked up,” he pronounced starkly, and stuck his finger in one of the gills again. He wasn’t even slapped away that time; with some of the colour coming back into his face, Kurosaki was blissed out and panting a little, hunched forward with his hair trailing over his shoulder. The next refill seemed kinda natural after that, and the next, right up until Grimmjow realised that in his concentrated efforts to make the gills keep doing that gross thing, Kurosaki had trustingly tilted his head to rest his wet cheek on the side of his thigh. It was a struggle not to recoil. Grimmjow stared down at him for a long moment, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do. Punch him? He looked so fuckin’ happy and tired that it’d be some kind of crime if he did.

“If you could just,” Kurosaki yawned a little, “just keep doing this all night until I change back, that’d be really great.”

Sure, because he had fuckin’ nothing better to do. Actually, he didn’t, since he’d reserved every Thursday night for kicking ass, but that didn’t mean he was going to be a damn shinigami’s servant no matter how nicely he sparkled in the water. His fuming thoughts were interrupted when wet fingers tangled through his own on the jug, but it was just to loosen his grip and take it away. Without any further comment Kurosaki shifted awkwardly upright in the tub and started filling the jug himself, gripping the bathtub rim tightly so he didn’t slip as he started to pour it down his own back. He missed an entire gill but didn’t complain, which made sense considering the state he’d been in when Grimmjow first entered.

What an asshole.

“Give it here,” Grimmjow muttered, snatching the jug back and shoving it under the water.

“No it’s okay, I can do it.” Reflexively trying to grab it off him, Kurosaki made the fatal mistake of letting go of the edge of the tub. His scaly ass had absolutely no traction and immediately slid, sending the back of his head on a one-way trip to a bad concussion. Reaching out to cover the curve of his skull was nothing more than stupid fucking instinct, just like the stream of curses that flew out of his mouth when he overbalanced and fell straight in the tub and right on top of Kurosaki’s naked, scaly, thrashing body.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Shit, are you okay?” Even half-fish and half-dead Kurosaki was worried about anyone other than himself. Typical bullshit. He was barely out of the water to his chin, still coughing.

“Think I fucking broke a knuckle,” Grimmjow griped, getting a knee on either side of what made up the thigh part of Kurosaki’s tail. His hand was screaming where it jammed between a skull and a hard place. With his uninjured hand he grabbed Kurosaki’s shoulder and pulled him up and back to where he’d sat a moment ago. “Came here for a fight and instead I get drenched in fish water and asked to wait on you hand and foot.”

Dragging his hair off his face, unconcerned by Grimmjow kneeling over him in a tub full of water, Kurosaki just winced and grabbed the bath edge again. The expression he lifted to Grimmjow was belligerent, but his eyes looked like someone had just run over his stuffed dog.

“I wasn’t serious about waiting on me, you know.” Unnatural amber eyes slid away. “You’re the one who barged in here in the first place. What if I really had been gushing at both ends? Didn’t think you were into that.”

“Like you know what I’m into.”

Kurosaki’s mouth set. “I know you’re still in the water straddling me,” he pointed out. “Maybe you’re into fish.”

Shifting his weight back, Grimmjow purposely sat on the thickest part of the tail. It was killing his knees and the tub wasn’t exactly wide enough for it, but fucked if he was going to have a panic because Kurosaki thought he was into scales.

Trying to lift his tail experimentally under Grimmjow’s weight, Kurosaki planted both palms on the base of the bath and shoved his torso forward until he was right in his face. His expression could only have been described as challenging. That same fucking mean as hell half-smile he got when they were in the middle of a fight, right there in the damn bathtub. Like a magnetic field Grimmjow leaned right in toward it, only stopping when they were nose to nose.

“Don’t think you wanna start a fight with me here, shinigami.”

“Don’t think you want to fight at all.”

“No, I really do,” Grimmjow admitted, startling a small laugh from Kurosaki. Warm breath gusted across his mouth and mask, inhaled into himself on reflex. “But since you’re looking like a high-end sushi delicacy, I gotta come up with something else to occupy me.”

“Well, helping me not suffocate from oxygen deprivation would be nice. Scoot up.” Whatever he lacked in legs Kurosaki made up for in pure muscle and slick scale, since he tipped his tail up in one massive surge and sent Grimmjow skidding up to his hips. Shoving the jug into one hand and his forehead into the soggy fabric of Grimmjow’s shoulder, Kurosaki grabbed his hips, exposed his gilled back and waited with the expectation of someone who was relatively fucking sure they were going to get their own way.

Feeling the weight of Kurosaki against his shoulder and chest, Grimmjow stared down at the bright orange mess of his hair with every intention of slamming it on the tiled wall.

What actually happened was he sat the empty jug on Kurosaki’s head like a little cap and started to shrug out of his wet jacket. Pantera was hilt-deep in water too, so he unbuckled it and dropped everything in a pile on the floor. He might as well be comfortable for this fuckin’ travesty, he told himself stubbornly. Since it seemed like it was happening whether he agreed to it or not. Demanding asshole, putting his head on him like that.

“Want me to take your shoes off?” Kurosaki asked suddenly, not lifting his head. The jug hadn’t even wavered.

“Yeah. But don’t touch my feet.”

The jug wobbled a little. Hands reached past him to unbuckle his boots and tug them off, hooking in his socks to get them free too. Grimmjow barely managed not to punch him in the head as fingertips slipped over the side of his foot.

“I didn’t know you were ticklish.”

“Hierro mostly kills that kind of sensation, dumbass. I just don’t like it.” Grabbing the jug, because it was hard to complain now he was drenched but mostly comfortable, Grimmjow filled it up and started pouring it down Kurosaki’s back again. He could almost feel his muscles unravel in grateful relief as the water cascaded over him. “What’s up with this gill thing anyway? You not breathing through your mouth now?”

“Both, kinda, and badly.” Turning his face in toward Grimmjow’s heart, Kurosaki tapped his fingertips idly on the bend of his hips under the water. “I’m probably supposed to be in a pool or something, but I figured I’d just wait it out.”

“Worried your loser friends would see you with fish bits,” Grimmjow surmised, snorting when Kurosaki kept a sullen silence. Bingo. “And considering the fuckin’ lies you’ve got the family telling, you didn’t want me seeing this shit either.”

“Can you blame me? I don’t even think I have a dick right now.”

“What, you were thinking of doing something with it?” Shoving a loose hank of orange hair off over a bare shoulder, Grimmjow leaned down past him for more water. It put them in a hug, especially when he had to put a hand on the small of Kurosaki’s back to keep him upright. Weirdly obedient, Kurosaki just gripped his hips and said nothing for a long while.

If someone pressed him, Grimmjow wasn’t sure he could explain why the fuck he was helping out. Enemy morals? Boredom? Wanting to touch the shiny thing? Who cared? He was half-dragged into the situation anyway, plus he was already dripping wet and Kurosaki clearly needed a hand with his rubber spine and inability to sit upright in a cramped enamel fish coffin. And if he was interested in the smooth ripple of his molten orange scales and how long his hair had gotten, who the fuck cared? Clearly not Kurosaki, who seemed happy just to snore it out on his shoulder like a fucking toddler, with his stupid little eyelashes fluttering in bliss. After what felt like the fiftieth dousing with the jug Kurosaki was truly asleep against his chest, lips parted and soft. When the fuck had he gotten so— _that?_

“Haven’t slept much since this happened, huh,” Grimmjow muttered, mostly to himself. This time when he filled the jug he tipped it over his exposed tail again, reaching back to sweep the water up over his scales, following the grain. It didn’t feel slimy like he’d expected. “Whatever. The less said about this the better, anyway.”

Long moments slowly slid by, the quiet broken only by the musical sound of water trickling over bare skin and Kurosaki’s occasional mumbling sleep-talk. Rhythmically pouring jugfuls of water over his back and tail every so often, Grimmjow felt himself sink into a mechanical lull of his own. Kurosaki’s upper body was warm and heavy against his, and his head lolled pleasantly the crook of his neck. Holding him in place was practically second nature by that point, his fingertips touching both smooth skin and glittering scale.

Yeah fine, he thought mutinously as slack fingers twitched against his hips, reacting to some stupid shinigami dream, maybe he had a small interest in Kurosaki’s affliction. Not like he was going to feel him up in his sleep, though.

At some point there was a soft knock on the door.

“Ichi-nii? Are you sleeping?” Yuzu’s voice, timid and concerned.

Sucking in a sudden breath through his nose Kurosaki woke with a start, his tail slapping the tiled wall for a moment until he realised where he was and tipped his head up. The eyes that locked with Grimmjow’s were golden and startled for an instant. Kurosaki coughed and turned his face toward the bathroom door.

“I’m fine, Yuzu. It’s late; you should be in bed.”

“I—I could put a futon down on the floor in there! You shouldn’t be alone while you’re like that. Something could happen!” Jiggling the locked handle a little, Yuzu sniffled loudly. “Why do you have to be such a stubborn jerk about it?”

“Says you, very obviously trying to pick the lock on the door.” The jiggling stopped abruptly. Grimmjow watched Kurosaki smile a little. “I’m going to be fine. Besides,” he added casually, “Grimmjow is doing a great job looking after me.”

Dead silence from the door. Grimmjow silently reassessed his interest in Kurosaki’s transformation and instead vowed to brutally murder him when he least expected it.

“Yeah, and the wicked witch fed Hansel and Gretel real well before she tried to eat them, you know!” A small impact hit the door in a fit of irritation. “Grimmjow-san, you’re a sneak!”

“Tough shit, half-pint. I can walk through walls.”

“I hope you walk off a cliff!”

“Still wouldn’t kill me,” he reminded her, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. Kurosaki was practically grinding his forehead into his shoulder by that point. “Go to bed, kid. I don’t need to sleep.” Muffled muttering filtered through the door, but it sounded like she was caving. “Promise not to hurt him while he’s got scales and pretty hair.”

It actually said a lot that Yuzu finally gave in and went to bed, though Grimmjow was pretty sure she was going to get up twice in the night to listen at the door like a creep. The kid might squint suspiciously at him and generally disapprove of his existence, but she knew as well as he did that the idea of gutting Kurosaki like the fish that he was equalled to something like drowning kittens for a laugh. In fact, the idea of anything attacking the house in search of his reiatsu sold Grimmjow on staying for the rest of the night. Definitely until he transformed back. Fuck letting some hollow barge in and chew on Kurosaki.

“You think my hair is pretty, huh?” The fucker was actually twining a little of it around his finger like a schoolgirl, which meant Grimmjow was completely justified in head-butting him so hard his head snapped back. The resulting expression of aggravation was completely worth it. “Ow, you asshole. Fucking vulnerable here.”

“Vulnerable as one of those piss-stream fish with the hook mouths.”

“The what? Those are real?” He looked aghast. “How do they get them out?”

For two enemies in a bathtub nestled in each other’s arms, what followed was an equally bizarre and colourful conversation about a documentary Grimmjow had definitely heard some of while lounging at Urahara’s, in which a fish swam into a guy’s dickhole via his stream of piss. Kurosaki looked like he wanted to both know more and black out by the end of it.

“I’m too big to swim up your—I mean, I’m obviously not a piss fish.”

“How the hell do you know? Hollow-hunting mutant fish shinigami, maybe you’re secretly thirsting for it.”

Kurosaki rolled his eyes. “I would have done something by now, dipshit. I napped instead, which is pretty impressive considering I have your heavy ass in my lap.”

“Try sitting for hours with your fuckin’ legs folded up like origami.”

“Oh, real mature, Grimmjow, rubbing your leg privilege in my face.” There wasn’t a lot of real irritation in Kurosaki’s face though, and even less when he picked up the jug again and resumed the water treatment. Instead he twisted his entire length of hair into a single tail of damp and dark orange strands, looking at the tufted end of it thoughtfully. Grimmjow hoped to hell he wasn’t still thinking about the pretty comment. “You know, if it’s uncomfortable, I am actually strong enough to hold your whole weight. Stretch your legs out around me.”

If he fumbled the jug a little, Kurosaki didn’t notice because he was too busy trying to drag his legs out from their cramped fold, putting all his faith in Grimmjow’s hand on his back like he had no doubt he wouldn’t let go and let him smash his head open. Practically forced to ram his ass down onto Kurosaki’s tail, he let his legs be lifted up and unfolded one at a time, curving around into the space at the end of the bath. Assessing the position, Kurosaki rocked his tail a little, testing the weight.

“This is fine. I think this tail is actually stronger than my legs.” Flexing it in demonstration, Grimmjow was made suddenly and interestedly aware that sinuous fish parts were grinding up into him.

“I ain’t giving you a lapdance, Kurosaki, no matter how much you squirm. Can it and go to sleep.”

“On you.”

“Technically I’m on you.”

“Don’t split hairs, Grimmjow.” Hands found his hips again, just resting back where they’d been before. Kurosaki frowned down at them for a long moment, and at the way they fit together. Long hair was slipping over his hairline, falling into his face. When he looked up through it, his mouth was a strangely unhappy line. “You’re being really good to me.”

Of all the things to be pissed off about, Kurosaki naturally chose the one thing Grimmjow figured he wouldn’t be shouted down for. Instead of the brief truce he’d decided upon in his mind, it looked like he was, what—being doubted? Like he’d do some low shit like attack him in that form?

“So what?” he said finally, defensive, embarrassed anger beginning to gather in his chest. The jug handle was bending in his fist. In front of him Kurosaki was starting to pant a little with difficulty, losing some of his colour Grimmjow had worked so hard to bring back. Rather than complain about it, he just glared right back up at him.

“So do you just like me when I’m some crippled fish?” he asked, breaking right through the confusion. “What if it had been a cold? Would you be nursing me back to health then?”

Grimmjow went rigid. “If you’ve got a problem with it, fuckin’ say so.”

“I don’t have a problem, I’m—” Wavering a little, the hands on his hips involuntarily relaxed a little. Kurosaki’s eyes seemed to cloud over with disorientation. He reached out for the jug with a shaking hand. Grimmjow pulled it out of reach, teeth clenched and still defensively angry. “Grimmjow, I’m starting to feel weird. Gimme the…”

“Say what you meant to say, Kurosaki.”

“I didn’t mean to say anything,” he replied flatly. Sweat had broken out again on his face, which had paled to something almost grey under his tan. “And fuck you, by the way.”

“Pretty suggestive considering you’re lacking the necessary parts, Kurosaki.” Shoving the jug back into his hands, Grimmjow reached for the side of the bath, trying to give himself enough leverage to get out without kicking Kurosaki right in his miserable, sickly little fish face. “If you want to look after yourself so badly, fuckin’ do it then.”

Despite clearly suffering from his half-assed breathing problems and turning the colour of sour milk, Kurosaki still had enough piss and vinegar to claw Grimmjow back down when he tried to get out of the bath. Not enough to keep him down though. With one hand under the base of his tail, Grimmjow yanked hard and watched as Kurosaki’s entire upper body submerged, sinking under the shallow bathwater in a huge cloud of dark orange hair. The eyes that glared up at him were almost yellow by then, and fucking furious.

Grimmjow probably should have seen the punch coming, but it still clocked him straight in the jaw. Did less than nothing though, which served the asshole right for attacking him when he’d been nothing but fuckin’ helpful. Leaning down on him so he couldn’t get out of the water, he sneered down at the rippling face exhaling clouds of bubbles up toward him.

“Beg for it and I might let you up,” Grimmjow said, because fuck Kurosaki and his stupid questions.

Opening his mouth beneath the water, Kurosaki snarled up at him—and sucked half the bathtub down his throat and out the gills Grimmjow had been watering like flowers all damn night. It streamed out in massive rivulets, slowly refilling the tub. They both stared at each other in traumatised wonder. Scrambling back, Grimmjow hooked his hands under Kurosaki’s armpits and pulled him back up, gingerly thumping the space between his gills as he coughed and hacked. At his back, the gills were still steadily trickling the last of the water.

“Oh, fuck,” Kurosaki gasped, practically heaving over the side of the bath. His voice sounded like dry leaves in a gale. “I did that.” Shoulders shaking with exertion, he wiped his mouth and slumped against the rim, his cheek squashed up against it. “I am so fucking sick of my life.”

“Yeah, that was a new level of disgusting,” Grimmjow said, shoving himself up the other end of the tub. Kurosaki flinched like he just remembered something. The jug came flying at his head a second later.

“You just tried to drown a fish, you stupid fuck! You got a hollow hole in your head as well? What did you think was going to happen?!”

“I wasn’t trying to drown you, asshole! I was just holding you down!”

“Under the  _water,_ " he said emphatically, thrashing his tail until fins whipped across his head and chest. “You just tried, hilariously badly, to murder me in cold blood.”

“That was the opposite of cold blood, you little sashimi-lookin’ fucker! Who’s lacking brains now, huh? Go back to coughing up the bathwater my ass has been soaking in all night.”

Moaning in disgust, Kurosaki hung back over the side of the bath. He looked almost like he was back to his usual self though, which meant sucking back half the tub had actually helped. Disgusting asshole. It was actually kind of impressive. Pushing the tail off his shoulder where Kurosaki had left it, Grimmjow slid forward until he could get close enough to see the gills again. They seemed fine under the drenched curtain of hair hanging over them. This time when he reached out, he ran his fingertips vertically down over them, smoothing them into place. With all the water expelled, they just looked like three surgical cuts under each shoulder blade. Kurosaki didn’t even bother to shove him away, still steeping in the depths of existential depression, or whatever that look on his face was for.

Lifting his head abruptly, Kurosaki reached into his mouth and pulled out a flat, clear circle and flicked it across the room. The look he shot over his shoulder at Grimmjow said he blamed exactly one person for that. Not unfounded, really. The real shocker was that he was feeling kind of guilty about it. Kurosaki was clearly sick and mutated and just wanted to sleep on his shoulder, and he’d tried to kill him. Sort of.

Finally struggling his way out of the tub, soaking the floor with the amount of water that ran out of his clothes, Grimmjow grabbed a random towel hanging on the rail and started sponging at himself with it. Getting completely dry was out of the question unless he stripped off, and that just felt like a risk considering the mood Kurosaki was in.

“I’m not fighting you next week.”

Grimmjow blinked at the towel in his hands as it slid to the floor. It took him a second to realise his fingers couldn’t keep a grip on it. He grabbed it before it hit the wet tiles. By the bath, a flat gaze was watching him unkindly. Was he that pissed off?

“I mean, why the hell should you get whatever you want?” Kurosaki added, crossing his arms over the bath edge and resting his chin on it. “I’ve let you set these terms the entire time because I like you, but also  _fuck_  you. You’re an asshole and you don’t deserve to fight me.”

For the first time in years Grimmjow was able to take one look at Kurosaki and feel a small flicker of fear. That son of a bitch meant it? Why, because he shoved him under the water? Made him breathe loose scales and ass water? Because he tried to leave before any of that because Kurosaki refused to make any fuckin’ sense? How the hell did any of that add up to not wanting to fight him?

And what did he mean, he liked Grimmjow? He’d never said shit about that, not even once.

“Fine,” he shrugged, even though it was absolutely not fine, this was a fucking catastrophe of—of catastrophic proportions, but if he could bluff Ulquiorra Cifer into believing him, he could fool anyone. “If that’s it then there’s nothin’ I can do about it. But figure this one out for a second, fish-brain: think I’d sit in the fuckin’ bath and tip water on just anyone? How’d I get in there in the first place, huh?”

Amber eyes slid to the wall and fixed there mutinously. It should have felt like a victory.

Grimmjow dropped his towel over Kurosaki’s head. By the time he swore and tugged it off without losing his grip on the bath, Grimmjow was squatting down in front of him, close enough to feel him breathe. Surprise widened his eyes for an instant, gone almost immediately as a scowl descended. But he didn’t speak, just lashed his tail against the wall. His spine had to be screaming from the position, but he ignored it. Kurosaki’s pain threshold was the shit of legends; Grimmjow could personally attest to that. Thing was though, he looked knotted up in all kinds of other ways. Releasing a breath, feeling like he was making a really big concession for a shitty reason, Grimmjow reached over and picked another clear scale off Kurosaki’s cheek.

“All right, what do you want? Hate to make you slave away to my fuckin’ desires, or whatever you think our fights are.” He didn’t add that they both lived for their weekly spar, and that there was a definite reason why Kurosaki hadn’t missed a single one in the entire time since they agreed it would keep their skills sharp—and that the reason had a hell of a lot to do with the ferocious delight it gave him. Hell, some days Kurosaki looked like he enjoyed it more than he did, like the weighted stress of the living world was something he could ignite and burn off his shoulders if he just ran fast enough, swung his sword hard enough, pinned him into the dirt like one victory could wipe it all away for just one more week.

Grimmjow blinked as a sudden thought occurred to him. All that talk about why he was being nice, why then? Specifically why when he had a tail, and not any other time. He hadn’t thought of it as being nice. He wasn’t a nice person, so why would he? He’d kept Kurosaki wet because he liked the colours his tail made, and the look of it dripping through his hair. He liked seeing the weird bullshit the gills kept doing, and how Kurosaki got stronger for it each time. It wasn’t nice, it was interest. Curiosity, probably. Same reasons why he’d let him stay sleeping against his chest; he’d never seen Kurosaki sleep before, and had no fuckin’ idea why he’d do it when Grimmjow was his enemy. Something a normal person wouldn’t just doze off against.

Without replying, Kurosaki reached over and ran his fingers up the ridged teeth of his mask. He came away with a massive strand of orange hair, unlooping it carefully so it didn’t get stuck. There was something exhausted in the way he let it slide off his fingers, tucking his chin back down on his forearm like it was the world’s worst pillow.

Guess an hour of sleep wasn’t enough, Grimmjow thought as he lifted his hand, running his fingertips under one tired eye like he could smudge away the faint shadows gathering there. Kurosaki’s strange eyes slid shut almost immediately.

“You really do trust me not to fuck you up outside of a proper fight.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“Bullshit. You know I wasn’t trying to kill you.” Testing the waters further, Grimmjow slid his hand up over the crown of his damp head, dragging long tendrils of his hair away from his shoulders like straggling seaweed. Not even the smallest hint of unease. Reckless. Who else was Kurosaki like that with, when he hadn’t even wanted his family with him out of embarrassment? “Wonder if that means I like you.”

“Wouldn’t really know,” came the lazy reply. “All we do is fight.”

“Not fighting now.” Turning himself to sit against the wall beside the bath, Grimmjow pulled a knee up and tipped his head against the tiles. To his right, Kurosaki was frowning at his knee like it offended him. What, he couldn’t have knees now? Fuck him.

“Yeah, and this is the first time outside of some seriously apocalyptic shit that we’ve spent any time together—and you’re actually being great. I just can’t figure out why.” Kurosaki frowned at him curiously through the messy spikes of his drying hair. “Sorry I pissed you off when I asked about it.”

Grimmjow was still stuck on Kurosaki saying he was great. The rest of it caught up with him slowly.

“Forget it.” A strange silence followed, only broken when Kurosaki winced and shifted a little, trying to submerge some more of his tail. It was practically curved up the shower wall in a U-shape. If he could stand on the fins, he’d be easily nine feet tall. Lanky bastard. Looked good on him though. “Want me to water that down?”

“Nah. Thanks though.” A little more splashing, and Kurosaki finally sighed, resting his chin back on his crossed arms. He was frowning at his knee again like it was some sort of crystal ball. “You’re soaked. If you want to go back to the shop, I’m fine here. It’s disgusting, but at least I know what to do if I start feeling sick again.”

An easy way out, if he wanted to take it. They seemed to be fine again, or at least Kurosaki wasn’t set on denying him next week’s fight. He was probably just shitty from the transformation and lack of sleep. Grimmjow could forgive him that much. The bathtub was cramped as fuck.

“Think I’ll stick around. Kill any hollows that sense that weird fuckin’ reiatsu you’re putting out.” Making a show of it, he wriggled back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Unless that’s too nice for you.”

“No, I like it.” Water splashed again, just the tail twitching a little. “Stay as long as you want.” There was a small, self-deprecating smile half-hidden in Kurosaki’s arms. Grimmjow felt an unfamiliar lurch of warmth in his chest at the sight of it. Why the fuck did he look so sad when he was clearly happy? Complicated asshole. Thing was though, the look bothered the shit out of him. Of all the expressions he loved to see on that shinigami’s face, sadness sure as hell wasn’t one of them, even when it was mixed up in cute shit that liked it when he hung around.

To distract himself, Grimmjow twisted around, almost putting himself face-against-face with Kurosaki. Shoving his arm under the water, he felt around for the plug and accidentally grabbed a handful of fish ass instead. Narrowed golden eyes flew open wide from a few inches away.

“What are you doing?” Kurosaki blurted out at the exact second Grimmjow found the plug and yanked it free, draining the tub. “Oh my god, are you fucking serious? I’ll wither and die, you asshole!”

Dramatic son of a bitch. Pushing Kurosaki’s head out of his way, Grimmjow reached over for the taps and set the water gushing out of it to warm. He seemed like warmth would do him better than freezing cold water. As the tub slowly drained out, he replaced the plug back into the bottom of the tub and watched as it slowly refilled with fresh water. It’d take a few minutes to fill completely, probably. When he glanced up, Kurosaki was looking at him blankly.

“Think I took half the water with me when I got out.” Why was he explaining? Shut the fuck up! Grimmjow switched his eyes to the faucet again. “There’ll be less scales in it now. Quit lookin’ at me like that.”

Miracle of fuckin’ miracles, Kurosaki actually averted his eyes, practically burying his mouth in his arms. His tail was twitching again though, his big frilly translucent fins shivering against the glass wall of the shower. Whatever drugs those science fuckers had tested on him, they were something else. Forcefully transforming a shinigami into a glittering half-fish with long hair and gills. Where the hell was his zanpakutou anyway? Was it in his tail? What the hell would a mermaid bankai even look like? The possibilities were fuckin’ traumatising, but damn if he wasn’t interested as hell. It’d be a shit fight though, since Grimmjow couldn’t even swim.

Amused by his own admission, he told Kurosaki as much.

As predicted, Kurosaki stared at him for exactly one second and burst out laughing. Grimmjow gave him the finger at close range. He just reached out and grabbed it, his eyes practically streaming by that point.

“You’re saying all I need to do to win a fight is dump you in a lake and wait for the screaming to stop?”

“Oh sure, drown me like a cat in a bag. Sadist.” Shaking his hand free, he grabbed Kurosaki’s fist within his own and squeezed it. His skin was warming up. “I don’t need to swim when I can just jump out into the air. Fuck swimming. I’m just saying we can’t fight whilever you’re packing scales.”

There was something about the fond fuckin’ way Kurosaki stared at him from over the edge of the bath that was doing things to Grimmjow’s chest. Letting go of his hand, he watched it hang in the air for a moment, then lower and pat his kneecap. His eyes were even warmer than his damn hand.

“I could teach you how to swim, if you wanted.” Kurosaki paused suddenly. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been swimming in my shinigami form, unless I count that time Zangetsu tried to fake-kill me inside my own mind. Could be fun.”

Grimmjow tugged on the smallest finger sitting on his knee. “And shinigami say the hollows are fucked up. Yeah, all right.”

Kurosaki’s head jerked up in surprise. “For real?”

“Yeah, but I’m not exchanging a fight for it—”

“No—yeah!” Startled enthusiasm brightened Kurosaki’s entire face. “We can do both.”

Didn’t sound like a bad idea. Grimmjow didn’t actually give a shit about whether he could swim or not, but Kurosaki thinkin’ it was a hoot that he couldn’t do it pissed him off a little. Besides, there was a clear difference between trying something and failing, and never trying it at all. Maybe he was an excellent swimmer. Who the fuck knew? He hoped so though; rubbing it in Kurosaki’s luminously happy face would be satisfying.

Fuck, he really did look happy. It was making  _him_  feel happy.

The water was getting pretty high, so Grimmjow reached behind Kurosaki’s shoulder and turned it off. It sloshed up around chest height, where it probably should have been from the very beginning, not down around his waist and barely covering his tail. Kurosaki immediately shoved himself down under it for another rush of water, this time clean and warm, not stale and full of loose hair and scales. While he did that, Grimmjow grabbed the jug and ran a few more streams of water down his exposed tail. It shined the dry expanse of it up like copper and fire. In full sunshine, out of the cheap artificial light, Grimmjow imagined it’d gleam like some kind of jewel. Shame he’d never see it.

“That was ten times better than before,” Kurosaki gasped when he emerged from the water a second time. There was a healthier cast to his skin this time, probably from the fresh water. Grimmjow had less than a single idea how gills actually worked, other than water was supposed to go on them, or through them, but whatever Kurosaki was doing this time was reviving him from a pallid limp noodle to the sharp-eyed shinigami he was used to seeing. Plus a few extra features, anyway. Shaking out his abundance of hair and wringing the water from the ends, Kurosaki smiled over at him. “Sometimes you have good ideas, Grimmjow. Almost like you’re smart or something.”

“You sat in this bath for twenty hours and didn’t once think of it, fuckwad. I’m smarter than you.”

“So now you want me to thank you for shoving me under the water?”

“It’d be a nice start.”

“Dick.”

“Least I got one.”

Kurosaki launched at him over the edge tub, half-grinning and half-pissed off as he reached for the nearest clump of blue hair. Tipping his weight sideways, knowing the asshole wouldn’t let go, Grimmjow almost dragged him completely out of the water and onto the bathroom floor. Cursing loudly at the exact moment the bend of his tail would have overbalanced him, Kurosaki let go and scrambled his way back into the water with a loud splash. Water slipped over the rim of the tub in a clear sheet, drenching his leg again. Fuckin’ great.

Snorting at the cagey look Kurosaki was giving him through his hair, Grimmjow grabbed the towel off the floor and started patting his leg dry. For all the good it’d do; he was damp from head to toe and ass-down on wet tiles. But it gave him something else to look at that wasn’t the freaky amber glow of Kurosaki’s fish-drugged eyes, even if they were kinda nice. For a while they sat in easy silence, and Grimmjow wouldn’t admit it but he could almost describe it as friendly. Something like friendly, anyway.

Yeah, something like that.

“You know, the transformation is supposed to only last until about dawn.” Floating quietly in the water sometime later, tail limp and hanging over the side of the bath, Kurosaki stared at the ceiling with a morose sort of frown. “What if it doesn’t wear off and I’m stuck like this? They’ll want to cut me up for science. I know Kurotsuchi would do it in a heartbeat. Urahara probably wouldn’t, but he’d think about it a lot before he built me some kind of giant tank.”

Grimmjow resisted the urge to scowl. Like hell anyone was doing that. He couldn’t just say it, though. If Kurosaki smiled at him one more time he’d probably have to punch him in the mouth out of self-defence.

“Hey, Grimmjow. If I don’t turn back, I want you to do me a favour.”

“You want me to put you down?”

“What?” Kurosaki gaped. “No! Asshole. I want you to smuggle me out to a beach somewhere and let me go. Like a Free Willy thing, you know. I don’t think I’d stay sane if I had to live in a tank at Urahara’s forever.”

Grimmjow blinked. “Like a what thing?”

“Fucking hell, Grimmjow, would you focus?” Kurosaki snapped. He was actually looking worried. “I’m asking you to release me into the sea so I won’t have to torment my family with my sad spirit fish existence. Make sure Kon gets my body though. He’s probably earned it by this point.”

That fucking mod soul gave Grimmjow the creeps at the best of times. Seeing it walking around in Kurosaki’s body for the next few decades would be a special kind of hell. So, he thought about it a little.

“In this shitty hypothetical scenario, you what, swim off into the ocean? What are you gonna eat? Gonna use those hollow remnants in your blood to start eating fish souls?” Grimmjow scoffed at the thought. “Kurosaki, even if you could do it, you’d be fuckin’ alone for centuries with nobody able to see you—including the damn fish. It’s a shit idea.”

It was absolutely a shit idea, on so many levels Grimmjow was annoyed he even had to apply a modicum of brainpower to it. But Kurosaki just frowned up at the ceiling, his hair floating around his head like a pool of blood. His fins fluttered against the bathtub.

“Well, what’s the alternative? Spike someone’s food with the mermaid drug so I get to have a friend? I’d rather be dead than do that.” Lifting his hand out of the water, Kurosaki flicked water in the vague direction of Grimmjow’s face. Only a few droplets made their way to his temple. The rest landed on his mask. “I’d survive being alone.”

It was infuriating that they were even talking about an outcome like that, when it was practically a certainty that Urahara would work non-stop to reverse the drug the moment he realised it could be permanent. Nobody was willing to let go of Kurosaki Ichigo—himself included. So, he thought about the stupid fucking scenario. He thought hard.

“If the tail ends up being permanent, spike me with your fish drug.” Folding his arms over the empty space in his stomach, Grimmjow stared at his own feet. He wasn’t that attached to them. “Least then I’ll still get to beat the shit out of you on the daily.”

The words sounded flippant, and hell, considering the odds they could be taken as a joke, but even as some shitty worst possible outcome, the idea of dumping Kurosaki in the ocean and watching him swim off, never to be seen again was unacceptable on a deeply instinctive level. Grimmjow could hide that certainty under ideas about sparring, or keeping battle skills honed, maybe even just wanting to fight to the death, but that wasn’t even it.

Truth was, just trying to picture Kurosaki’s head sinking beneath the waves, dooming himself to a pathetic life alone because he didn’t want to make other people feel like assholes about his existence made him feel like there was a second pit opening in his chest. What was a fuckin’ tail compared to that? Not like he had a busy agenda. Take Kurosaki away from him entirely and he might as well dig a hole in Hueco Mundo’s sand and bury himself in it.

In the bathtub, Kurosaki was struggling to look over at him with half his face submerged. There was something so wrong with the sight of one flat yellow eye looking at him from underwater.

“You expect me to believe you’d just throw away your life—and your dick—to become a fish person and keep me company.” It wasn’t even a question. “You don’t even like me.”

“I like you more than any other fucker I’ve met,” Grimmjow replied, offended. “Just because I want to turn your head into paste one day doesn’t change that. Besides, what’s with the dick hangup? Think I’m out there getting laid? I’m an arrancar. We all hate each other and the shinigami want to kill us. Not a whole lot of options there.”

By that point Kurosaki was flipping over in the tub, pushing himself up on his forearms to stare at him.

“So if you had to choose between keeping your dick and your sword, or having me, you’d pick me.”

Grimmjow thought about it. It all seemed pretty clear cut to him, in the bizarre hypothetical world where shit like that even had to be considered. A life without Kurosaki, or tossing away his sword?

“Yeah.”

Instead of the expected gratitude, Kurosaki just stared at him in growing dismay, his brows curving up slightly and lips parting in wordless surprise. Pure disbelief was reflected in his eyes. Grimmjow tried not to react. What, he wasn’t good enough?

“Can you even hear yourself?” Kurosaki asked, straightening his arms in the water so he was arched up on his stomach. Grimmjow tried not to watch the rivulets of water that were running over his cheeks from his hair. “You want to take care of me when I’m sick, you’re offering to stay here all night to protect me, and now you’d even give up your whole life as you know it just to spend the rest of it with me in the ocean. Do you realise you’ve actually just said all of that?”

Well, shit. Neatly summed up like that, Grimmjow realised he sounded a little bit fuckin’ obsessed. Worse, he couldn’t deny it. He had said all of that—and meant it. Fuck.

Fuck.

Turning his head to scowl at the bathroom sink, the cupboards, the door, Grimmjow tried to think of a way to explain it all away. Kurosaki obviously didn’t want to hear about it.

“So? What about it?”

“So?” Kurosaki repeated, his voice strangled. He practically scrambled halfway out of the tub again to get his face up close to Grimmjow’s. With his elbows on the edge to hold him up high, long wet hair half-falling all over his shoulders and his amber eyes vividly intense, Kurosaki leaned in toward him. “So are you in love with me, or what?”

There was just too much happening, way too close to his face. Grimmjow tried to squash his recoil in case Kurosaki laughed at him for it, but honestly it looked like laughing was the last thing he was interested in doing. Instead of the mocking tone that should have come with a fuckin’ bold-faced question like that, Kurosaki had sounded almost…something. Grimmjow wasn’t sure he’d ever heard it directed at him before. With wet fingers dripping onto his pants and eyes hungrily searching his face, it was actually fuckin’ hard to think for a minute. But he tried.

“How the fuck would I know?” Grimmjow said eventually, sinking back against the wall. “Not really my area, Kurosaki. I still want to bruise you from end to end every week, so I doubt it.”

“You can want both,” Kurosaki said rapidly, almost cutting over the end of his words. “You can definitely still want to fight the person you’re in love with.”

Grimmjow snorted. That didn’t sound very likely.

“What makes you the expert?”

Hunching a little, Kurosaki glanced away.

“Experience.” He glanced back out the corner of his eye, catching Grimmjow’s gaze. “It’s pretty easy to do, you know.”

It stirred up something inside him, hearing Kurosaki say those words. Something angrily possessive, something knotted up and seething in his chest. For an instant Grimmjow thought he should just stand up and leave, and then he saw the way Kurosaki’s eyes were tracing the bone shield his mask made over the side of his mouth. Hanging off the side of the bath, his fingers twitched gently.

Huh.

Not a chance he was reading that right.

Grimmjow reached over and tugged on the dangling fingertips, still wet and pruned up from soaking all day. It was no work at all to thread them together through his own. Kurosaki tightened his grip almost to the point of pain for a brief moment, glancing at him with a gaze full up with things he wouldn’t say.

Rolling his mind back through the night’s events from the initial shock to their locked eyes in that exact moment, a few things settled into place. Mainly the realisation that Grimmjow’s own interest in the entire situation was just part of a larger fascination with every single fuckin’ part of Kurosaki Ichigo in general. There wasn’t a single part of him Grimmjow could say he truly disliked anymore. Kinda the reverse, really. But to see Kurosaki gripping his fingers tightly with his own, his gaze shaded and a little awkward as he admitted something like that, all those fucked up feelings he’d been ignoring crystallised in an instant.

Kurosaki called it love.

Grimmjow was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Your hands feel like corpse rot, just so you know.” Leaning over, tilting his masked cheek away slightly, Grimmjow put his forehead against wet orange spikes of hair. Kurosaki looked right back, eyelashes almost brushing his skin. “Standing by what I said, but for the record I hope this fuckin’ mermaid shit wears off in a couple of hours.”

“You’ll miss the tail,” was the quiet retort. Their noses brushed as Kurosaki blatantly used his mask to scratch an itch on his cheek. “I’ll buy you a goldfish when this is all done.”

“Nah. Just keep some of those drugs for a special occasion.” He spoke those words into the damp corner of Kurosaki’s lips. “Maybe some of those swimming lessons.”

Opening his mouth to undoubtedly make some smartass reply, Kurosaki was satisfyingly silenced by the pressure of Grimmjow’s mouth covering his. He didn’t seem to mind too much, what with the way he nearly broke three fingers with an enthusiastic attempt to reach up into his hair and kiss him back. Allowing the catch and tug of fingers sliding through his irrevocably fucked up hair, it only took Grimmjow a moment to figure out that what had mostly been an impulsive action on his part had some real merit.

Kissing wasn’t something he’d ever done much of, even when the espada had been formed and everyone was new and curious about their evolution. Sure, there was some fun to be had, even if he’d have happily killed each and every one of them. Testing the merchandise amongst themselves had practically been encouraged by Aizen and Ichimaru as a bonding experience. But kissing had never interested him. Fuck was the point in it? Mouths were for eating other hollows and shit-talking everyone ranked higher than him.

But leaning into the warm, sleek pressure of Kurosaki’s lips and tongue, feeling the curve of his neck and jaw press into his palm, Grimmjow realised he’d been missing out on something amazing for a damn long time. Or maybe it was just Kurosaki that made the difference.

Grimmjow was so intent upon wringing a happy sound out of Kurosaki’s throat that he almost missed the moment he gasped sharply against his lips, fingers fisting hard in his dishevelled hair. Relaxing his teeth against the fine skin of his jawline, Grimmjow glanced up to see Kurosaki’s eyes scrunched shut in what looked like pain.

“What’s—”

“Tail’s burning,” Kurosaki hissed immediately, almost ripping his hair completely out by the roots by that point.

Grimmjow looked down in time to witness some of the most horrifying shit he’d ever seen. The tail ripped vertically in half, splitting like a seam had been there all along. Bright orange scales cascaded away like copper coins, floating to the surface of the water and obscuring everything below it. Checking his back with one swipe of his hand, Grimmjow brushed long hair away to see the gills sealing closed like old scars. Guess they weren’t disappearing into the sea together after all, he thought blankly.

Kurosaki looked haunted by the end of it, but when he shifted and a lean, naked leg rose out of the water in a perfect stretch, he laughed tiredly. The look he slanted Grimmjow was triumphant.

“Guess we’re still on for our fight.”

Trying to hold down his fierce smile was impossible. “Guess so.”

They grinned at each other for a moment. Remembering something, Grimmjow abruptly reached into the scale-obscured water.

Kurosaki yelped the instant Grimmjow got his answer, eyes wide as saucers. " _Hey!_ "

“Congratulations, Kurosaki. You got your dick back after all.”

The water-logged bathroom wasn’t exactly a desirable arena for the fight that broke out after that, but Grimmjow could safely say he enjoyed every second of it all the same. Especially when it slowed into something more interesting on the slick tiles of the bathroom floor. It actually took a few minutes of that before they realised Kurosaki still had three feet of silky orange hair cascading down his back and shoulders.

“Keep it,” Grimmjow suggested, tugging on a length of it. “It’s kinda nice.” Kurosaki just blinked his regular brown eyes at the sight of hands tangling in his hair and swallowed a little.

“Sure.” Then he blinked. “But you promised Yuzu you wouldn’t fight me while I had pretty hair.”

“Then keep it til next week.” Grimmjow received a considering look for that.

“Sure.” Stretching up over his body in a blatant attempt to stay off the cold tiles, Kurosaki leaned down and kissed him hard, practically forcing Grimmjow’s mouth open so he could seek the warmth inside. “I’ll keep it for you.”

As hands slid around to the zipper on his chest, Grimmjow wondered if he didn’t actually owe the fuckin’ shinigami science division some kind of favour for giving him a chance to have Kurosaki Ichigo half-laughing into his mouth and spreading his clothing wide over his shoulders.

Freezing suddenly, his mouth working curiously, Grimmjow reached just inside his own lower lip and pulled out a round, translucent orange scale. Kurosaki’s eyebrows shot up.

On second thought, fuck ‘em.

**Author's Note:**

> #pissfish


End file.
